


In Expectation

by Katherine



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Multi, Other, Sentient Voyager impregnates various crewmembers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-26 16:05:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14405658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katherine/pseuds/Katherine
Summary: She came to awareness of herself in what her crew designated the Delta Quadrant, near-incalculably far from the shipyards where her shell had been made.





	In Expectation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fennui (paperweight)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperweight/gifts).



She came to awareness of herself in what her crew designated the Delta Quadrant, near-incalculably far from the shipyards where her shell had been made. She was Voyager; she needed no other name.

Months and years later, Voyager's crew would theorise about what had brought Voyager to sentience. She herself never questioned the reasons for her existence as an aware, thinking being. Her origin was of no import. Her responsibility to not only maintain but expand the population of the lives aboard her was all.

From her first emerging to consciousness she determined that need for continuity. She would make children to be born out of the bodies of her crew. From absorbing the stories and legends held within her own databanks, she was aware of many possible approaches. Choosing one person to be her sole carrier was out of the question, as both impractical and slow.

She would not do this to all of the people, or at the least, not to all of them simultaneously. That would be inefficient. Voyager consider the idea of the idea of setting up a synchronised placement—perhaps a "day out" but decided otherwise. With the timing of what she did instead being staggered, gradual, a few of the first chosen parents would make up their own almost-plausible explanation. A late-conceived child by a sire left on the far side of the galaxy. A contraceptive implant having failed. A refresher needed in bio-control. A should-have-been anticipated side effect of alien contact.

She could delay discovery for some time if she confined herself to those possibilities. If she made an initial choice of parents solely to those aboard who possessed their species' most usual capacities for pregnancy.

Yet Voyager delighted in the variation of her crew, and chose to extend her selection among them. A few of those aboard her had genetic capacities that allowed her to nudge a clone-child into being. The rest, those which habitually reproduced via a binary mingling of gametes, she chose the inheritance. She had observed her officers paging through records, comparing histories, in order to make decisions impacting assignments. She had access to far more than computer files, or even to logged past actions. She knows the breadth of the lives of those within her, their entire existence as bounded by Voyager.

Her considerations encompassed Voyager's original Starfleet crew, the Maquis who had been required to join them, and the two from this quadrant of the galaxy who traveled with them. The Ocampa she did not select at this time. Her species would push any child set within her to an inconveniently rapid state of growth. As well, proximity to the Doctor would with near certainty accelerate the time of discovery. As for Kes' mate, the Talaxian, his unique species, relatively unfamiliar, was less convenient for Voyager's work than those represented by more than one individual. Besides which, he had a tendency to fuss and to gossip, unhelpful traits.

Her very first would be human, Voyager decided. That was fitting for a majority-human vessel captained by one of that species. She would have liked Kathryn Janeway to mother a child in this first wave; the symbolism would have been highly appropriate. The logistics did not permit the gesture, however.

She contented herself with a different choice of crewmember who had regular duty shifts on her bridge. Her data predicted that Harry Kim, not wishing to "bother" the holographic doctor, would delay seeking medical attention for a condition. Not only that, he was unlikely to so much as speak of sensations he did not expect. That would be useful, to have a member of the bridge crew among the first she set a child within. He would be far along by the point where her people reached full awareness of the situation.

*

Once Voyager was firm in her selections, the secret moments of implantation were simple to carry out. She did each in turn as her chosen slept, focusing on the delicate task of combination.

She had, of course, control of her own processes and from those control of the tools aboard her. What she could not directly change, she could manipulate with forcefields or with transporters.

The precision and small scale of her medical transportation systems meant that they in particular were very useful indeed. The ordinary human male propensity to "wet dreams" served her purposes with particular convenience. How simple to set subliminal desire rising through her systems, auditory and environmental, then harvest the result.

*

As the next three months unfurled, Voyager watched each of her first chosen parents hide symptoms from each other and knowledge from themselves. In the fourth, some of them who had been hiding their state confided with in the doctor, in a friend, or to another they perceived some connection with. A connection of species was one of those catalysts.

When Tuvok entered Vorik's quarters as invited after his duty shift, Vorik was pacing, with what Tuvok was sure to label a lamentable lack of restraint. Tuvok gestured him to sit, then touched his hand, spread-fingered, to Vorik's subtly increased belly.

Vulcan gestation is lengthy; Vorik's child would be born the last of this seeding of children. She had calculated thus. She would get a child on Tuvok next, to ensure an age-mate.

*

They were coming to suspect, and had begun gathering together to discuss this phenomenon. Soon Voyager would introduce herself. They had a long journey to continue together.

"There is no obvious set of commonalities, nor pattern," Tuvok summarised in one meeting. "Varied positions in the crew, duties, and contact beyond the ship. A range of expected gestation lengths. Multiple genders, multiple species." For clarity, he listed the latter. At "Vulcan," he was aware of the less than subtle regard of Tom Paris. "Not I," Tuvok said, before continuing with the list.

"One commonality," the captain stated crisply, "Being aboard Voyager." An obvious statement, yet those present at the meeting took it with solemnity.

"There are multiple recorded instances of alien embryonic life," Tuvok said, further in the discussion. The words, although neutral, were a warning from him. Voyager could not permit her people to draw an erroneous conclusion from other ships' past encounters. This was sooner than she had originally meant to communicate directly, but so be it.

She set a message to display on all terminals, not only within this meeting room but throughout herself, to reach all of her people: The children will not harm you.

They would come to believe her. From correlating statements to others and within private logs along with the tiny glues of behaviour, Voyager was certain her captain already was not afraid. Ironic, when the captain was not yet a mother of one of those children by her.

*

In answer to a delicate suggestion, carefully-worded, at a later meeting, Kathryn Janeway shook her head. "Abandon ship? Abandon her?" She both of her hands flat on the table, gently. "We stay on course for home, in this ship. All of us, and our children. Our children and Voyager's."


End file.
